Psychological tests as indicators of excessive exposure to carbon disulfide

Twelve psychological tests including a standardized questionnaire were administered to 20 male viscose rayon workers with long-term exposure to carbon disulfide and to 152 nonexposed men. With the method of multiple discriminant analysis the number of tests was reduced from 12 to 5 and the number of variables from 30 to 7. The variable setting of the obtained discriminant function contained measures of different types of psychomotor performances, emotional behaviour and subjective symptoms. Sensitivity and specificity of the tests and the criteria for a detected effected were evaluated a posteriori. In general, the sensitivity of the methods was better than its specificity. Sufficient specificity could be obtained when a higher probability level for belonging to the exposed group was applied as the criterion, but even then, the application of other, reference diagnostic methods seems necessary to separate the false positive cases.     

THE COMPLEX NONLINEAR THINKING: EDGAR MORIN'S DEMAND OF A REFORM OF THINKING AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF SYNERGETICS

Main principles of the complex nonlinear thinking which are based on the notions of the modern theory of evolution and self-organization of complex systems called also synergetics are under discussion in this article. The principles are transdisciplinary, holistic, and oriented to a human being. The notions of system complexity, nonlinearity of evolution, creative chaos, space-time definiteness of structure-attractors of evolution, resonant influences, nonlinear and soft management are here of great importance. In this connection, a prominent contribution made to system analysis and to a necessary reform of education and thinking by Edgar Morin is considered.     

The effects of alcohol and variable amount of cognitive stress on the estimation of time

Abstract.— The estimated durations of 4 standard intervals, 3, 5, 7, and 9 sec, and of the total experimental period, 11.5 min, were studied (a) in the absence of stress, during the rising and falling blood alcohol level phases, and (b) in situations involving variables stress (maximum, control, and anti-stress). Alcohol was found to lead to underestimation (a verbal estimate smaller than a given standard) in the absence of stress, but did not affect the estimates when stress was involved. A pronounced central effect was found under maximal stress which was not affected by alcohol. Ss under stress tended to overestimate the length of the experiment when compared to Ss under anti-stress. The Ss rated their current mood on 16 variables, but no significant effects could be related to their time estimates.     

Parent-child communication in families of different educational backgrounds

The present study was an attempt to investigate the often repeated claim that both verbal and nonverbal communication styles are related to the social and educational background of the parents. The subjects were 40 Finnish first graders and their mothers or fathers. The dyads were divided into equal groups of lower and higher parental education. The videotaped situations consisted of three cooperative tasks. Comparisons were also made between the mother-child dyads and the father-child dyads. No difference was found between the higher and the lower educational group in nonverbal communication. The linguistic aspects of speech were approximately similar in both groups. There were, however, differences between the educational groups in regard to the planning aspects of speech, controlling and conversional turn-taking. Only a few minor differences were found in the communication of mothers and fathers as well as in that of girls and boys.     

Coping with Stress in Families of Servicemen: Searching for “Win-Win” Solutions to a Conflict between the Family and the Military Organization

The objective of this research was to explore the coping patterns of servicemen's families with the competing demands of two institutions: the military organization and the family. The sample comprised one hundred career soldiers along with their families. The research instruments included individual interviews, a battery of questionnaires, and a role-playing task. Examination of the couple's joint coping modes yielded two major categories of families — families that were successful in their efforts to resolve the military vs. family conflict, and families that did not manage to reconcile the competing demands of these two domains. Within each of these two categories there were a variety of distinct profiles. To compare the dynamics of successful coping with less successful coping regarding the military vs. family conflict, a conceptual model was suggested. This model subsumes the antecedent variables (job issues, support network, and couple relationships); mediating variables (cognitive appraisal of conflict severity and coping potential, as well as actual coping strategies); and outcome variables reflecting the degree of adjustment to the military vs. family conflict.     

Psychological tests specific to individual carbon disulfide exposure

Psychological tests including 26 variables were administered to 206 male viscose rayon workers with long-term exposure to carbon disulfide and 152 nonexposed men. The purpose of the analysis was to examine the reciprocal validity of the various variables as indicators of carbon disulfide effect on mental functions. All the subjects were classified either as normal or deviant in regard to the results. Twenty-five % of all results was classified as abnormal for every variable. Five variables, i.e., Bourdon-Wiersma speed, Santa Ana right, form level of the straight lines in the Mira test, and the Rorschach test variables for detecting emotionality and originality were significantly ( p <0.05) more frequent among the exposed subjects. A combination of an abnormal finding for all five variables, or all variables except Santa Ana right occurred for 6% of the exposed group but not at all among the nonexposed. These combinations are suggested as specific for the psychological effects of carbon disulfide.